City of Manitowoc Seventh District Alderperson Aaron Bailey is accusing the City of funding a secret of investigation against him.
In a press release Monday from the Crusaders of Justicia, Bailey accused numerous Manitowoc City Departments of “colluding to conduct a secret investigation into his residency status” and called the situation a “witch hunt”.
Manitowoc City Council President Eric Sitkiewitz confirmed there has been a complaint filed against Bailey, and that the City was also made aware of the complaint.
Recently Alderperson Bailey posted on Social Media that he was a resident of the Seventh District in Manitowoc, even showing his state issued ID card. At issue is whether Alderperson Bailey still lives at the address on that ID card or has moved out of district 7.
Manitowoc City Attorney, Kathleen McDaniel was asked if there has been discussion of a Council Authorized investigation into Bailey’s residency. She said “Alderperson Bailey has not missed any Committee of the Whole meeting where the status of an Alderperson as a qualified elector has been discussed, so he would have been aware of what was occurring if it was discussed at those meetings.”
The press release accused the City Attorney of “structural racism” and complained that open records requests “have been improperly delayed or denied”. McDaniel responded to the accusation of not providing information in any open records request saying, ”The City is intending to fill these records requests. In a perfect world we would have sufficient staff to immediately fulfill records requests, I fill them in the order they are received. I was in a two day arbitration meeting last week so I had very little time to work on anything.”
Wisconsin State law states: Open Records response must be provided “as soon as practicable and without delay. But the public records law does not require a response within any specific date and time, such as “two weeks” or “48 hours.” Wisconsin DOJ policy is that 10 working days generally is a reasonable time for responding to a simple request for a limited number of easily identifiable records.
We have reached out to Alderman Bailey for a comment, but as of this report have not received anything from him.
The Committee of the Whole is scheduled to continue discussions on the topic at their meeting tomorrow evening.
